House On Bay Street Holds Eustis' History, Historian

November 29, 1987|By Angela Dickey of The Sentinel Staff

EUSTIS — Charlotte Wilson, a resident of 536 North Bay Street, has seen a lot of Eustis history from the front porch of her house. But that's to be expected. Mrs. Wilson is no ordinary woman, and her home is no ordinary house.

She is the granddaughter and last surviving descendant of Guilford D. Clifford, the first settler of Eustis. She still lives in the house that her grandfather built in 1910 on the shores of Lake Eustis. The 14-room mansion, also known as the Clifford-Taylor house, serves as home not only to Wilson but also to the Eustis Historical Museum.

Mrs. Wilson, whose clear blue eyes and animated voice belie her 88 years, is eager to share her knowledge of Eustis history.

Her grandfather Clifford, a native of New York, helped build the Erie Canal before turning his entrepreneurial sights on Florida in the late 1800s.

''He picked up a land-grant agent in Washington, D.C.,'' she said, ''and they came down on a paddle-wheel boat from Jacksonville. It took them three days and two nights on the boat, then they had to take horses the rest of the way in.''

The year was 1875. His homestead encompassed several square miles stretching from what is now Lake Woodward to the present location of the Clifford-Taylor house. Much of the area was swampland, infested with alligators, water moccasins and mosquitoes. So Clifford stopped at the first place he saw, Lake Woodward.

''He built a two-room shack with a dirt floor, and lived in one room,'' she said. ''He planned to have a store in the other room. Of course, though, he was the only one around here.''

But Clifford eventually would have a store -- and plenty of neighbors to call customers. That same year other settlers joined him, and he and five other men founded Eustis Territory. Eustis took its name from Gen. Abraham Eustis, who had commanded the troops at Fort Mason (which was located north of present-day Eustis) during the second Seminole Indian War..

Clifford built a pump on stilts at the homeplace on Lake Woodward, and headed back up North, to Virginia, to take care of some unfinished business.

''He had a bride, a Virginia girl,'' Wilson said. ''She took one look at that dirt floor and . . . goodness gracious!'' She rolled her eyes as if to demonstrate how her grandmother might have greeted the sight of the her first Florida residence.

At any rate, the Cliffords had come to stay.

''Every two years, they had a little baby -- six of them,'' said Wilson. ''All girls.''

Guilford Clifford built the first general store -- indeed, the first building -- in downtown Eustis. Its second floor was an open hall in which the citizens held dinners, played games, and met to organize the town's first churches.

He owned and operated not only the store but also a small ice plant, a sawmill, and a printing press. About 1885 he built a bigger house for his wife on Center Street. Finally, in 1910, he started building the biggest house of all, the one on Bay Street.

Wilson recalled, ''My grandmother used to say, 'You know, he always told me he was going to build me a big house. But he didn't tell me when he was going to build it.' ''

The house her grandfather built had seven bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths. He put a furnace in the basement (a rarity for Florida) and a 500-gallon artesian well in the yard. He lined the six fireplaces with tiles imported from Italy and outfitted the whole house with brass chandeliers and doorknobs. The only major structural change the house has seen in nearly 80 years is a slate roof, which in 1923 replaced the original cypress one.

Charlotte Wilson inherited her grandfather's hankering to go everywhere and do everything. She was raised and educated in Atlanta, where at 17 she found work with the Federal Reserve Bank. For many years she traveled all over the country for the Federal Reserve System. During the era of Al Capone and Pretty Boy Floyd, she was one of several reserve system examiners who went into small-town banks that had been robbed by gangsters.

Today Mrs. Wilson proudly points out a hand-made black walnut desk built by her grandfather. It consists of two pieces that are hinged together. When the two sides are closed, they make a square. According to Wilson, officials from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, have twice approached her about acquiring the desk.

''This side was the first bank in Eustis,'' she said, gesturing to cubbyholes in the desk that served as makeshift safety-deposit boxes for early settlers, ''and this side was the post office.'' She pointed to similar slots in the other half of the desk.

On the desk is a Webster's dictionary, copyright 1856. It was the first dictionary used in the first school in Eustis. The school had 14 students; Wilson's mother, Lottie Clifford Taylor, was one of them.

Taylor, who was the oldest of Clifford's six daughters, inherited the house upon his death. In 1923 Wilson, who had lost her husband in a plane crash, moved from Minneapolis back to the house on Bay Street to be with her mother. She never left.

The Lake County Historical Society purchased the Clifford-Taylor house in 1978 for $85,000 but had trouble paying off the mortgage. So in October 1979 the county sold the house to the city for slightly less than $58,000. Since then, the city has spent several thousand dollars renovating the exterior. (The Eustorical Historical Museum was moved into the house almost three years ago. Wilson conducts tours of the east wing during the day and sleeps in the west wing at night.)

Of course, it's somewhat silly to quote dollar figures when you're talking about preserving a city's history. As anyone in Eustis will tell you, Charlotte Wilson and the house on Bay Street are priceless.